Tales of the Arena: Roa
by Veno
Summary: The criminal controlled city of Roa is the center of an international fight ring. The best fighters in the world compete for wealth and fame in sometimes fatal and always dangerous clashes against their fellow warriors. Let the games begin...


Foreword:

First off, each chapter (or couple of chapters) represent different stories of different characters.  These stories are part of a much larger story that's still struggling to get off the ground.  I'm just writing this because I want to put something up with all these characters I've come up with and this world that I've created. 

Second, I am very rusty and this, especially the first chapter, is just a quick post to help me get back in practice.

Chapter 1:        Beauty of the Rain

Isa hated rain.  It brought back deep rooted memories the young woman would much rather forget.  The scars on each of her wrists would bleed uncontrollably whenever it rained, bringing her as much annoyance as pain.  She could still feel the knife sliding through her flesh, still see that disgusting grin on the man's face as he stared at her. 

The sudden clatter of shattering pottery disrupted Isa's thoughts, delivering the woman from her agonizing past.  She was relieved for a moment before she looked across the room and found the source of her distraction.  The vase that had once contained the last living plant in her room was now scattered in dozens of pieces on the floor.  Reflexively she reached for her belt knife, which was, as she expected, not on her belt.

"Not again!" she groaned, the pain of the past replaced by horror at what the future would bring.  "Liandra's gonna scold me again!"  

As if on cue, the older woman came rushing through the door.  Liandra wasn't much older than Isa, being only three years older at nineteen years of age, but was mature far beyond her years.  She was well-known as a genius swordswoman and had recently started her own mercenary group in Roa.  She had brought Isa from Japan and had recently been training her, but some things had been harder to let go of than others.

Her green eyes found the ruined vase immediately and widened at the sight.  This was far from the first time that this had happened, but Liandra always appeared surprised whenever Isa's knife would seemingly fly on its own and find the nearest breakable target.  The angry eyes that she turned towards the younger still caused the same onset of guilt that it had the first time as well.

"Isa Iwamori!  I thought we had gotten past this!" the blonde haired Liandra exclaimed, her intended iron somewhat lost through her naturally gentle voice.

"I'm sorry!  Isa keeps thinking about back then, and her hands move on their own!" Isa apologized, jumping out of her seat and bowing instinctively.

"And you're still doing _that_… You don't have to bow to _everyone_ over here.  And you know better than to refer to yourself in the third person…" Now Liandra sounded like the one being scolded, her voice made pitiful from her frustration.

"Isa will- I mean, I'll do better! I promise!" Isa said, doing her best to resist the urge to bow deeper.

For a moment, there was silence between the two women.  Liandra muttered occasionally about the mess that was left of the vase or the tragedy that had befallen the flowers that had once inhabited it, but she said nothing to Isa.  Isa knew why her mentor had yet to respond, and that knowledge kept her from raising her head.  Liandra's mind was hard at work crafting the punishment for the scarred Japanese girl.  Each time it was orginial, unorthodox, and increasingly unpleasant.  Unfortunately for them both, none of the punishments had been effective in addressing the problem.  It was obvious from the lengthy amount of time that Liandra remained silent that she was determined to make this attempt a successful one.

"Isa, it's the rain that makes you remember, right?" the blonde woman asked calmly after long deliberation. 

Isa didn't know if she wanted to respond.  The answer to that question was obvious and her mistress had become much too calm too quickly.  The young woman's eyes squeezed shut as though she'd been struck.

"Yes ma'am.  It happened… in the rain…" Isa answered, her voice quivering anxiously.

"Then it's decided.  You are going to learn to accept the rain," Liandra declared proudly.

Isa's eyes snapped opened as wide as they would go.  That's what she had said the first time that Isa had put a knife through a vase.  The "treatment" they had tried that time was to have Isa do her favorite things out in the rain.  That had only led to Isa being without many "favorites."

"But.. didn't we already do that?" she asked timidly.  Questioning Liandra was never a good idea.  The woman could be the gentlest person in the world sometimes, but she could also be as cold hearted as the stones that made up the castle they now inhabited.

"Don't worry Isa.  I know exactly how to fix this," Liandra said comfortingly as she lightly brought Isa's chin up with her fingers. 

Isa's blood froze at the sight of the other woman's eyes.  She knew that the European woman only wanted what was best for her, but the caring and comforting eyes she saw were those of the most loving demon alive.  Before she knew what was happening tears were streaming from her eyes.

Liandra carefully wiped her tears away before placing a kiss on her forehead.  She took Isa's hands in hers and smiled.

"I didn't bring you here from Japan just for you to mope about and suffer every time it starts to rain.  It's time, Isa."  

Now Isa understood what that horrible feeling had been before.  She didn't want to.  She pulled back, trying to free her hands from her mentor's now vice-like grip.  She screamed out, begging in multiple languages to be released, to be forgiven.  She couldn't do it.  She had thought that she could, but she knew now that it was impossible.  She had to leave!

"ISA!!"

The power in Liandra's voice chased away Isa's terror, leaving the girl to weep pitifully at her mistress' feet. 

"Isa…"  This time, her voice carried only sympathy.  When Liandra knelt down in front of her, Isa threw herself into the other woman's arms and cried until she could cry no more.

The next night, Isa stood inside the caged fighting ring of the Arena.  The training she had undergone for the past year had prepared her for this.  The roar of the crowd dulled beneath her focus and her opponent, a heavily armored and muscled man with a menacing broadsword, could not penetrate her expertly honed defense.  But, although she saw countless oppurtunities to counter and immediately end the fight, she could not bring herself to kill him.

"Stop running around and fight back!" the man growled, the hate in his voice hurting Isa's ears.  He really wanted to kill her.  He wasn't going all out yet, but his thirst for blood was very real.  She was willing to bet that killing even gave him some crazy sense of sexual gratification. 

"I-I can't!" she stammered as she turned aside a strike with the short sword she worked with her left hand.  He tried to continue after her, but she slammed the side of her spear in between his legs, causing him to trip and fall to the ground.

"Isa! I taught you more than defense!  End this fight!" The one voice from the crowd that penetrated her consciousness, the voice of Liandra, called out.

"But- I can't kill!" she yelled back. This time she heard the crowd.  They laughed collectively at her response as though they thought she was joking. Maybe they did.

"If you don't end this fight in less than two minutes, you will be going home!" Liandra's word cut Isa to the core.

Back home?  That meant constant reminders of what happened that rainy night.  The night that her home, her family, her virginity, and even her sanity had all been forcibly and cruelly taken from her.  That would be the only thing worse than suffering it all again.

"Never again," she said to herself, unaware of the change that was beginning in her heart.  "Never again."

"What are you mumbling about?" her opponent growled.  "Hm..your eyes say you're ready to fight.  Let's see if that's the case!"

The speed and power of the man's attack was far greater than what he'd shown before.  His sword sung a dangerous melody as it flashed around her in a deadly dance.  The power of his strikes reverberated through her weapons as she blocked them, sending shockwaves through her entire body.  If her body and mind hadn't already become numb to the world, she would have been in danger of fumbling her weapons.  The man's sword sped faster than her eye could follow, but his hate-charged attacks were easily predicted by the calm state of Isa's heart and defeated.

The man felt the shift in the balance of power and intensified his attack in an attempt to reverse it, but all of his efforts were in vain.  Isa was always able to deftly parry with her short sword, stop his strikes with her spear, or dance out of the offending blade's path altogether.  Enraged, the veteran warrior and hardened killer, abandoned defense completely, pouring everything into his attack.

This would be his last mistake.

He charged forward with a mighty yell and struck, aiming to bury his blade into Isa's right side.  He knew that his broadsword was much stronger than the shaft of her spear, and that he was much stronger than the young teenager herself.  She wouldn't be fast enough to get out of the way, and, even if she blocked, the power of his strike and his sword would cut through her weapon as easily as it would cleave her body. 

But he didn't understand that Isa had seen his attack coming long before he had even started it and had long since come up with a counter.  Her spearpoint shot forward like lightning and pierced the man's forearm, pushing through his body until it stood over a foot out of the back of his shoulder.

The large gladiator's head went back as he howled in pain.  Exactly as Isa had anticipated. Her sword arced in from the left as she spun in past her spear, slicing through her opponent's vulnerable throat.  Her sword cut deeply, slicing so that the man's head fell backward, attached only by the uncut flesh in the back of his neck.  Blood sprayed high into the air, coating everything inside the Arena with the crimson coat of death.

And as she stood in the shower of blood, Isa smiled broadly and truly.  She felt more relaxed, more at ease than she had ever felt before.  The pain of her past seemed to wash away in this baptismal of blood. 

"The rain… it's beautiful," she whispered, awed to tears by the paradise she felt.


End file.
